


The Last Soldier

by Alma_Arc



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Zack dies earlier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 14:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29245137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alma_Arc/pseuds/Alma_Arc
Summary: Zack never survived the Nibel Reactor and therefore couldn't rescue Cloud from Hojo's clutches. From this single point of divergence, the story unfolds. Will fate align our heroes and certain events?Tags and characters will be updated as the story progresses.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 18
Kudos: 91





	1. The Survivor

Professor Hojo surveys the damage. Nibelheim is on fire. Or, it was. Parts of it are still smoking and the rest is smoldering wreckage. 

“What happened?” he asks the Turk next to him. 

He’d read the debriefing on the airship, but there had to be more to it. The General, the company’s top Asset, the pinnacle of his scientific research, could not have simply ‘gone AWOL’. 

“Officially? Nothing,” Tseng says. “Unofficially…” He lowers his sunglasses. “Catastrophic losses.”

No kidding. It will take decades to replace a miracle like Sephiroth. Hojo wonders if anyone has informed Lucrecia yet, wherever she is. 

“Survivors?” Hojo asks, watching black-uniformed Shinra employees pile charred bodies in the town square. 

“Some civilians fled before we arrived. But mostly, no.”

“Mostly?” 

Hojo looks over at Tseng. The Turk is stoic, eyes ahead, trained to deal with extreme loss, but there is pain beneath the surface. The death in the air is getting to him. It stinks of burnt flesh.

“An Asset?” Hojo presses.

A First-Class SOLDIER had gone with the General on this mission, according to the report.

Tseng shakes his head. “An MP.” 

“Just one?”

“Yes. Badly injured. The President wants him… terminated.” 

Hojo considers this. He’s been wanting to run a new trial of Jenova cells on necrotizing flesh. 

“Take it to my processing lab instead,” he tells Tseng. 

“The President’s orders were clear.” 

“And the MP will be destroyed. I assure you.” 

Hojo grins. It unsettles Tseng, the way the scientist eagerly taps his fingertips together, but he hasn’t the energy to argue. He has this whole mess to clean up. 

“We can’t secure transport back to Midgar. The MP cannot leave Niblehim,” Tseng tries anyway, hoping to spare the MP the professor’s scalpel. 

Hojo frowns. The Nibelheim lab isn’t equipped for medical emergencies, but then again the point isn’t for it to survive. The Mako submersion tank could be used to stabilize the specimen. 

“Fine. Then set him up in my lab here, at the mansion,” Hojo says. “Assuming that hasn’t also burned to the ground.” 

A roof collapses inward on a nearby home. Ash fills the air. 

“The mansion was extinguished first, and the basement is intact,” Tseng reports. “I will instruct the medics to deliver the… young man to you.” 

Hojo barely hears him. He’s already heading towards the mansion, mind filled with how exactly to fill the enormous void of Sephiroth. There was no body recovered at the Reactor. The Mother Cells were disturbed. No, ‘decapitated’ is the correct word. The crown prize of his scientific research, defiled!

He sits in the basement. It’s cool in here, a stark contrast to the intense heat everywhere else. The bookshelves are ransacked, pages torn and littered everywhere. Who the hell went through all his research? 

The MP arrives, carted in by two medics. Hojo instructs them to put him down and get out. 

“This thing... is alive?” he sneers, peering at the mess of a man. 

A shallow breath lifts its chest, and yes, there is the faintest pulse, but the center of the MP is sliced through with a deep cut. The work of a Masamune. Blood covers the torn uniform, dripping to the floor. The face is young, boyish. Blonde hair is matted in sweat. Its skin is extremely pale. 

Hojo begins prepping the Mako suspension chamber. If the MP survives (unlikely), it would need the Mako resiliency in its cells to sustain the first round of Jenova treatment. It was a shame there couldn’t be more survivors. There is another theory Hojo has been wanting to test. A reunification theory, that all cells taken from the Mother would eventually coalesce together again. But in order to test this theory, years of scientific planning would need to take place, and he’d need many test subjects. Without fruitful results, the President would be less likely to fund his endeavours. And with this most recent failure with Sephiroth, their jewel of the Wutai war, the biological weaponry research program would most certainly be defunded next year. 

So this could be it, Hojo thinks as he hauls the rasping unconscious body into the tank. Tubes begin flushing the chamber with liquid, that cold chemical scent of Mako nips the air. 

Catastrophic failure. Hojo exhales. He watches the security footage from the Reactor, now classified and scheduled for deletion along with the rest of the materials collected, and cannot believe what he is witnessing. A rotten feeling pulls at his chest. Despair. Shame. He watches his son cut down a First-Class SOLDIER with ease and wrench open the housing for the Mother Cells. It is unbearable. 

The camera in the Reactor’s entryway, however, captures something unreal. It doesn’t make sense. 

He eyes the MP in the Mako chamber, suspended in half-death. Was this the same man?

Couldn’t be. Sephiroth falls, twisting into the open pools of Mako far below. Hojo cringes and stops the tape. He removes his spectacles and rubs his eyes. There is much work to do. Scientific advancement often meant missteps, and Sephiroth had obviously been a misstep. A miscalculation. 

No matter. He will keep trying. The Jenova cells have many secrets to unlock, and only persistence would be the key. 

His mind is already racing with ideas, and he grabs a nearby pad of paper, feverishly jotting down his thoughts. 

Nearby, the MP twitches as Mako coats his skin. It enters his mouth and slides down his throat. One fingernail etches the glass entombment. He cannot see. He cannot scream, but he is in agony.


	2. Five years later

Cloud awakes to a scream in his skull, but he doesn’t recognize it as his own. A steady drip has kept him under for so long that waking is pure panic. The room is too bright. That scratching noise, too loud. He is nauseous. His head is pounding. There are sounds inside his head like whispers, rapid and nonsensical. Signals of pain immobilize his arm. His whole body is distant. 

Darkness coalesces into artificial light. He is lying on a metal table. There is another person nearby. The walls spin. He wants to go back to sleep. It would be better that way. 

The other person leans in, examining, and the sight of those bespectacled eyes shoots instinctual fear through him though he can’t understand why. The man looks frail, harmless. 

Then he sees the white lab coat, the Shinra identification badge. Professor Hojo. The brilliant scientist leading the science division. The one who’d put those humans in the Mako condensing tanks. Why would he be here in the Reactor? 

Cloud tries to speak, but his mouth is numb and throat dry. He hears his bones creak. Needles press into his skin. Something hot runs through his heartbeat, and he fades away.

These wakings happen twice more, each time allowing him a longer view into this other world. Each time he remembers a little bit more. He tastes smoke. He sees Tifa, lying unconscious on the metal grating inside the Reactor. It’s hard to think with all that whispering. 

The final waking is in a different place altogether. He’s in a hospital bed. Beige-colored walls surround a window showing ambient city lights and steel skyscrapers beneath a black sky. The pain in his arm is just a sting now. He gazes over at the scaffolding of tubes nestled in his veins and feels sick. He wants to throw up. 

Professor Hojo is there. He’s always there. 

“Do you know your name?” 

Cloud finds the question absurd. Of course he knows his name. But when he says it his voice sounds unfamiliar and faint. 

“And your rank?” 

He tries to recite his Shinra identification number but finds he can’t remember the digits. He can’t remember even the proper rank name. He did graduate from the training academy, he knows, and he was on a mission with—

“General Sephiroth,” he says, his voice stronger with the solid memory holding him. “Where is he?”

The General had gone mad. That’s right, he’d become violent without allegiance. He’d set fire to the town. He’d decapitated that thing in the Reactor and carried its head out like a trophy, spewing insane rhetoric. 

“What happened to him?” Cloud demands. Because he thinks he knows, but it doesn’t seem possible. 

Hojo doesn’t answer right away, though in that silence Cloud understands the immense loss. 

“The General is dead,” the professor says. “It seems you killed him.” 

So it’s true, all these memories. Cloud closes his eyes, exhausted from the exertion of speaking.

“Where am I?” Cloud asks softer.

“Midgar. Shinra Tower.” The professor is checking vitals and scribbling notes. “There is much you need to know.” 

It takes a week for Cloud to fully recover. 

He’s been in a coma for five years, Hojo tells him, the result of massive hemorrhaging from his encounter with Sephrioth then compounded by severe Mako poisoning. But an experimental Shinra gene therapy allowed him to survive. Cloud is required to remain on Shinra property under the care of the science division to monitor side effects, but this doesn’t bother Cloud because Nibelheim is gone. His mother burned to death, and he is sure that Tifa did not survive either. There is nowhere else for him to go.

The official story to the press is that Sephiroth is missing because the public and the company would otherwise be devastated. He’s forbidden to speak of the incident to anyone.

Cloud takes it all in, and the scarred burns on his body corroborate a desperate struggle to find his mother in the fiery wreckage. Five years is a long time. This is the hardest part to deal with. Not the constant whispering or the stench of Mako that follows him everywhere. He lost five years just like that. 

He’s confined to the Shinra Tower, but it isn’t so bad. The science division is underground, but he’s given a room near the top floor with a window. Each day he is put through rigorous training tests and physical fitness exams, exceeding all marks with ease. The gene therapy treatment has really improved his reflexes and strength. He spends hours doing military drills and developing lethal skills with a variety of weapons. The academy had given him a gun, but he finds he much prefers a sword. 

There aren’t any other active SOLDIERS, and Cloud gets the impression that the Shinra military has faded in superiority since Sephiroth’s demise. He’s pitted against oversized mechanical monstrosities with Mako-based weaponry, Shinra’s newest investments. A departure from the biological, he overhears Hojo lament. The company is too focused on robotics, ignoring that its greatest scientific achievements have come from human assets.

An asset is what Cloud is. He’s heard the professor call him this when speaking to others. First-Class SOLDIERs were also called ‘assets’ but he wasn’t first-class. He wasn’t anything. Just lucky. He watches the bits of Mako glow in his eyes in the mirror. He wonders if that’s the cause of the voices. 

One day he’s told to report to a man named Heidegger. He’s being transferred to the department of Public Safety, and he doesn’t see Hojo again. 

“Ah, the professor’s little science project,” Heidegger says to him when they first meet. Cloud hates him right away.

The war with Wutai may be over, but Shinra remains under attack by terrorists living right here in Midgar. Right under their noses. Intel from the Administrative Research team suggests the terrorists are plotting to blow-up the Reactor in Sector One. Tonight.

Cloud must intercept and stop the terrorists. 

“You better be worth the resources,” Heidegger says with a scowl. 

“Don’t I get back-up?” Cloud asks, waiting to be assigned a squadron. 

Heidegger laughs, loud and cruel. 

“Aren’t you a First-Class SOLDIER?” he retorts. “If so, you don’t need any.”

Was that his rank now? Maybe Heidegger is making a joke. 

He’s given a company sword and shown the exit. This is the first time he’s been outside in… could it actually be five years? The air is choking, nothing like the purified interior of the Tower. He looks up, expecting to see stars but it's just darkness in the cloudless sky. Midgar, the floating city, is an amalgam of metal and light. He’s studied the maps, and he knows where to go. 

At some point the whispering in his head stops, or maybe he just stops noticing it. He crosses into Sector One, heading towards the Reactor.


	3. Sector One

The terrorists aren’t what he expects. He thought they’d be from Wutai, but the three he spots infiltrating the Reactor look like regular Midgar civilians in ragged gear. The only one posing a threat is the one he assumes to be the leader, a man with a gatling gun attached to his arm where a hand should be. His demeanor is polished and militant. The other two are less formidable—a woman wearing a red bandana and an overweight man in a white shirt. 

Cloud watches them for a while, shadowing them within the Reactor. They take care of the MPs on duty with some struggle, the woman injuring her leg, and it's clear the only real fighter is their leader. It’s tough to see the other MPs get hurt. Cloud remembers when he was wearing that uniform and how much it had meant, but Heidegger left explicit directions not to interact with other Shinra employees.

He follows the trio to the Reactor core. The open pools of Mako send spiraling memories through his head. Fresh anger and pain. A raw choking sensation. No, that was years ago and irrelevant. Hojo had told him the Mako poisoning would leave these sorts of issues. He stands in shadow behind the central core in the platform suspended above the churning green lake. 

The leader approaches, carrying a device. It’s a pathetic makeshift bomb, barely large enough to punch a hole through the steel protecting the central structure. Are these really the terrorists Heidegger spoke of? 

He waits until the leader approaches the console. 

“That’s far enough,” Cloud says, stepping from the darkness. 

A stony glare answers him. 

“Who the hell are you?” The leader’s voice is gruff, condescending. “Another Shinra dog?” 

“Woof woof,” Cloud says and readies his sword. “I was instructed to destroy you, but how about you just walk away instead?” 

Because this guy does not look threatening up close. There is heavy exhaustion beneath his eyes. His skin sheens with sweat. His organic hand is trembling. Cloud doesn’t want to kill him, even if he is a terrorist.

“How about you get the fuck out of my way?” the leader replies, jaw clenched. He puts the bomb back into his satchel and sets it down, eyes locked on Cloud. 

“You aren’t going to plant that bomb,” Cloud tells him.

The leader snorts. “Oh yeah? You gonna stop me?”

The two behind the leader suddenly spring into action. Despite her wound, the woman is fast, throwing a multitude of tiny bombs, and the overweight man opens fire. 

Cloud leaps to the side, putting the large flat side of his sword up like a shield. The three are fearless, desperate, and Cloud can’t believe they would risk this amount of firepower so close to the core. If an uncontrolled explosion did go off, it would kill all of them. 

The leader is relentless, firing a barrage of bullets in Cloud’s wake as he whips around the platform. But Cloud is much faster than any of these three. He closes the distance with the leader and slices off the gatling gun. Twisted metal and wires spark, and the leader screams. This only aggravates the others into a frenzy. Cloud throws his weight against the woman, knocking her to the edge of the platform. She clings on with fingertips, precarious above the swirling Mako below. The overweight man is easy to overcome once he pauses to reload. Cloud disables him as well. His guns clatter across the grating, useless. The leader grits his teeth. 

“Now I have no choice,” Cloud says, and he means it. They can’t escape now. He would be forced to kill them. 

A sudden low rumble resonates in the walls. Cloud feels it through his boots, and the Mako splashes with the disturbance. 

Cloud brings his sword to the leader’s neck. 

“Tell me where your other team is!” he demands. Because surely he is wrong about this group having the bomb. There must be another group setting off the real explosion. 

“Ain’t us, man!” the leader insists, hand raised in defense. 

The ceiling shakes. The metal support beams are creaking and shifting. Cloud realizes the danger as he stares upwards at the sediment falling. He’d been wrong, and he’d need to get out fast.

When he looks back at the terrorists, they are up and running. The overweight man makes a pit stop for his female companion, but when he sees Cloud approaching, he leaves her and sprints away. She’s slipping over the edge. Mako sloshes up to her boots. 

Cloud wants to pursue the two on foot. He knows he should, but the thought of someone else falling into pure Mako, enveloped into that hell, makes him pause. He extends a hand out to the woman. A large beam collapses onto the platform, throwing the structure off-balance. She falls and he grabs her wrist, hauling her up. 

“Aren’t you supposed to ki-ki-kill me?” She regards him with wide eyes, pure fear. 

“C’mon,” he replies in annoyance, pulling her with him. 

He knows this Reactor well—most are built with the same layout—and drags her enroute to the nearest exit. But the blood loss from her leg is profuse. They’ll never make it out at this rate. He sheathes his sword and picks her up. She’s light, and she struggles at first then realizes their peril and simply holds onto him. 

The entire Reactor is crumbling down around them. He runs fast across splitting concrete and metal grating sliding away. Corridors disintegrate into dust behind him. The stairs are the worst part, but once he reaches the maintenance exit, he keeps running with her to get as far from the destruction radius as possible. Could one bomb have really done all this? 

A wave of smoke and debris overtakes him. He can’t see anymore so he plants her down and shields her with his body just as something blunt and heavy smacks into his ribs. She’s curled into a ball. A chemical cloud of awful Mako mixed with burning metal stings his throat and eyes. He holds his breath and the roar of the falling Reactor rushes all around. 

Then, it's over. Thick plumes of smoke cover the sky. Dust suspends in the air, and the woman is coughing and gagging. They are both coated with white ash. He can only see her eyes, and she his. 

“You okay?” he asks, looking back at the empty space where the Reactor just was, now a pile of rubble and smoke. 

She nods. “What the hell was that?” she asks between coughs. 

“That wasn’t your team? Didn’t your group plan to take down this Reactor?”

She hesitates.

“Answer me.” 

“Yeah, but not like that!” she shouts. “That wasn’t the plan!” 

“So you are part of the terrorist group.” 

She presses her back against the wall, avoiding his gaze. He knows he can’t let her go free now. 

“Empty your pockets,” he tells her. She has to be a prisoner if he isn’t going to kill her outright.

She complies, handing over a healing materia in silence. He pops it alongside the ice materia in his own weapon, and she scatters various components for explosives to the street, all inert. Civilians from the neighboring blocks are wandering into the wreckage, and it’s time to go. 

“I...I need to bring you in for questioning,” he says, but even he doesn’t fully believe this is what will happen to her. 

She’s in no position to argue. He helps her up and lets her lean on him while they leave the Sector. Emergency crews speed past, sirens flashing, and people stand in the street, gawking at the smoldering hole behind them as they head towards the Shinra Tower. 

“What are you?” she asks. “Are you some kinda SOLDIER?” 

“Please don’t talk to me.” He doesn’t want the guilt of his failure to compound if he begins to develop empathy for her beyond the Mako saturation. 

“Because I’ve never seen a SOLDIER move like that before.” 

“Oh yeah? How many SOLDIERs have you seen?”

She doesn’t respond. They walk slow. He wants to carry her again, but he realizes he doesn’t want to reach the Tower quite so soon. He’s still picking apart how exactly that explosion could’ve happened if the terrorists weren’t involved. Both this woman and their leader had denied it, and wasn’t that the whole point of a terrorist attack? To accept responsibility? 

“My name is Jessie,” she offers. 

“Please don’t,” he replies. 

“What, do SOLDIERS not have names?” 

“Yeah, we get numbers,” he jokes, but it falls flat because she looks like she actually believes him. 

The din of the sirens fades, and they cross out of the threshold of Sector One and into the Shinra Tower’s perimeter. 

“Why did you save me, Mr. Not-a-SOLDIER?” 

It’s an innocent question. He tells her the truth. 

“Because you were going to fall into the Mako.”

“So?”

“Have you ever fallen into Mako before?”

She shakes her head then falls silent. The Tower looms, blotting out the night sky.

“Well, this is it. I hope I never see you again,” he says, bringing her around to the side entrance. The flashy lobby is not for prisoners. 

He delivers her to the MPs on duty, placing a call to Heidegger and informing him of the prisoner. As they take Jessie away, he notices she’s still covered in ash like a ghost, trailing puffs behind her. He’s no better, and he goes upstairs to his room to shower. 

But when he walks past the executive board room, he overhears harsh whispering. 

“You almost killed my Asset!” Hojo is saying, extremely pissed-off. 

Cloud pauses, listening. He hasn’t seen or heard from Hojo since the transfer.

“Your asset?” Heidegger scoffs. “That thing is company property, not your little pet anymore. Besides, it was a great test of its stamina, no?” 

“You almost threw away years of scientific work. And for what? To gain public scorn for a bunch of motley citizens that your department can’t get a handle on?”

“Watch your tone. Don’t forget whose sympathy allowed you to keep your pathetic science division after all those consecutive failures.” 

Hojo huffs loud and angry. Cloud backs away from the door just as Hojo throws it open. The professor storms right past him without acknowledgement. Heidegger cackles. 

“Come in,” Heidegger says to Cloud, seeing him in the hall. “This prisoner you caught. You did well.” 

Cloud enters the board room, standing near the lavish mahogany table, feeling very out of place.

“But the Reactor,” he begins, knowing he must address his failure, “it still—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Heidegger consoles. “But now we have an even better opportunity thanks to you.”

“We do?” 

“Public execution!” 

Heidegger’s eyes brighten with the thought. His lips curl in a malicious smile. Cloud feels a little sick suddenly. 

“We just need to capture the rest of those little fuckers. And put them all to death at once, squashing the whole sect!” 

“Understood. Permission to be dismissed, sir,” Cloud says, wanting nothing more than to wash the grime of destruction off his skin. 

Heidegger’s smile fades. 

“Fine, fine, get out of here. I’ll need you when we have more intel. You did a fine job. Almost makes Hojo’s bickering worth it.” 

Cloud leaves, uncertain of what he just overheard. It sounded like Shinra caused that Reactor to self-destruct, not any terrorist cell. And they knew he’d be inside. Perhaps it truly was a test, a final rigorous examination of his limits. 

He tries not to read too deep into it as he drifts off to sleep. But his nightmares are filled with Mako.


	4. Sector Five

“Sector Five!” Heidegger barks in Cloud’s earpiece. “They’re hitting Sector Five! Get down there!”

Intel hadn’t come in from the Administrative Research division. A redundant security system on the Reactor had been triggered, and Cloud is racing down the highway on a company-issue motorcycle to pursue. A helicopter would be faster but it may tip-off the intruders of Cloud’s arrival. 

“We’ll sneak up on those assholes and take ‘em out!” Heidegger cackles. “Follow my instructions. I’m in the security feeds.” 

No screw-ups, is the impression Cloud gets from Heidegger’s insistence of remaining in contact with him during the mission. He let two of them escape last time. He won’t make that same mistake.

This time the MPs in the Reactor are informed of Cloud’s arrival. He is to subdue the terrorists for capture, destroy them if priority one is compromised. The MPs will assist with extracting the prisoners. The Sector Five Reactor doubles as a major hub of weapons production, so Cloud knows there is no risk of Shinra imploding this one with him inside. 

“One of them is heading towards the central security office,” Heidegger says. “Cut him off first.” 

“Affirmative,” Cloud says. 

He pulls up to the Reactor and cuts the engine. He looks up at the massive structure as he adjusts the weight of the sword on his back. Floodlights illuminate the central pillar, showcasing billowing steam in a greenish hue against a black sky. It is an impressive feat of architecture and technology. Why would anyone want to blow one up, especially within the city limits? 

He moves fast. The security room isn’t far, but he’s already well behind the terrorists. There’s a trail of dead MPs. Cloud wishes he’d gotten here sooner. He throws open the door to the security center. 

“Hello,” he intimidates from the doorway and draws his sword. 

A young man wearing fatigues and a red bandana is hunched over the controls. He’s sweaty and frantic. 

“You’re too late!” the man shouts and presses the controls on a device he’s holding. It’s connected via a tangle of wires to the Shinra panels. The security feeds all go dark. 

“That doesn’t matter,” Cloud says. “It’s too late for you as well.” 

The terrorist brings his gun up and shoots. Cloud’s sword deflects the bullet, but it would have been an accurate shot right at Cloud’s head. The man fires several more times. Cloud advances. 

“Surrender,” Cloud says. 

“Subdue him now!” Heidegger hisses in his ear. “I’ve lost visual on the others, but there was one heading towards the deliverable configuration units! You need to—”

Cloud pulls the earpiece out and throws it aside. He can’t concentrate with that awful voice in his head. 

“Surrender now!” he repeats to the terrorist. 

“Go to hell, Shinra scum!” 

Another barrage of gunfire. Cloud rushes in once the clip clicks dry. He meets the terrorist's eyes as the sword swings down. The arrogance is gone, replaced with pure fear. Cloud pulls the killing edge at the last second, smacking the broad side of the weapon against the man’s skull. The man flies across the room and collapses. Unconscious. Cloud realizes he probably hit him a little too hard. He checks for a pulse and breathes out once he finds one. 

He tampers with the device hooked into the security console, but it’s gone dead. The battery pack is burnt-out and hot to the touch. Nothing he can do, and the wires are such a mess that it would take a qualified technician hours to repair. 

He picks up the earpiece to hear Heidegger screaming at him. 

“I can’t repair the—” Cloud tries to report, but Heidegger isn’t having it.

“I don’t care about that! Get to the config units! I’m calling MPs to your location to secure the prisoner.” 

Cloud obeys. He waits for the MPs to march in and restrain the unconscious man, whose head and face are already swelling. Then he runs out. The configuration units are on the other side of the Reactor, near the supply intake for weaponry. This Reactor is unique from the others because of this assembly wing. 

His footsteps hammer down the metal grating of the robotics storage, past massive incomplete techno-enhanced weapons. He hates these things, having been made to fight against several during his recovery. Even lifeless they look menacing. 

At last he reaches the offices where the assemblies are configured from arms deliveries. At the oversized console, an overweight man in a white shirt taps away. It’s the same terrorist from Sector One.

“Stop right there!” Cloud shouts across the room. It’s a big open space cluttered with boxes dumped from pneumatic tubes onto conveyor belts for inspection and assignment. 

He’s a little out of breath as he approaches the terrorist. The overweight man turns and freezes.

“You again!?” 

“Me again,” Cloud agrees, steadying his sword. “Surrender now. It’s over.”

“N-n-no way, man. You killed my friend! You’re going down.” 

The terrorist pulls a gun on him. In the other hand he holds out a bomb, detonator primed beneath one finger. Cloud recognizes it as a class-two explosive, or a crudely constructed copy of one. It’s enough to level the entire room. The terrorist squeezes down. If the pressure is released, the bomb will explode. 

“Don’t be stupid,” Cloud says. “I’m not here to kill you. And your friend isn’t dead if you’re talking about that woman you left behind in Sector One.” 

This has an effect as the man’s expression softens. 

“Jessie is... ?” Then he shakes his head. “No, you’re lying! You’re Shinra. I can’t trust you!”

He opens fire, clutching the explosive tight. 

Cloud closes the distance, taking cover behind crates of expensive electronic components as he advances. He hears tinny beeping and leaps away just as a proximity mine erupts next to him, ripping shrapnel through his ribs and shoulder. Pain registers in his brain, but adrenaline takes over, transforming it into rage. 

He charges at the man, sword flashing, bullets ricocheting. 

The terrorist backs away but the console is behind him and he has nowhere to go. The gun is empty, and he throws it at Cloud in desperation, struggling to retrieve the rifle on his back while holding the bomb. It’s not enough. 

Cloud closes the gap and cuts the rifle from its strap on the man’s chest, flinging it away. Warm blood is soaking through his side, sliding down his hip. Fuck, it hurts. 

“You,” Cloud seethes through clenched teeth, “should not have done that.” 

He brings the hilt down hard on the terrorist's skull, not caring if any permanent damage is done. Just as the man falls, Cloud grabs the explosive from his hand, pressing down in the exact same spot to prevent the bomb from going off. The overweight man collapses onto him and Cloud kicks him aside, sweating from the pain branching through his abdomen. 

The console, thankfully, looks untouched. What was this guy trying to do here? Cloud taps the disposal tube open and prays the explosive has a standard three-second timer. Then he holds it into a high-grade container made specifically for ammunition and releases the detonator, snapping his hand away and hitting the call button at exactly the same time. The pneumatic tube whips the box away. It will still explode in the system of course, but at least now it won’t kill him. 

“Report!” Heidegger makes him jump.

“Subdued,” Cloud replies. He pulls bits of glass and curved metal from his side, biting his lip. 

“I’ll call the MPs.” 

“Y’know, I could really use the MPs _before_ confronting these targets.” 

Heidegger laughs. “You got a mouth on you! Just shut up and do your job. I lost eyes on the last two, but no doubt they are heading to the core. Get there first.” 

The comm goes silent. Cloud winces. There’s a shard under his ribs that he can’t dig out. Blood dribbles over his gloves. He has to go on. The central core isn’t far.

He walks with a limp, and his thigh is damp from blood loss, but at last he reaches the catwalk leading into the core. He pulls himself onto the rail overlooking the central platform and spots two figures running across the bridge above the cistern of Mako. One of them is the leader he engaged with in Sector One, gun-arm fully repaired and raised. The other is a woman. A strange sensation hits him. 

White blots out his vision. His head swirls with dizziness. Suddenly, he’s in the Reactor in Mt. Nibel. It’s a similar layout except the Nibel Reactor is not as well-kept, the Mako is much further below in the well, and the central core is through another door because that was where Jenova and the Mako condensing units had been held. The woman is running across the bridge, long dark hair trailing behind her. She’s crying, and she collapses next to a fallen man. She’s screaming with anger and hatred. She curses Shinra. She picks up a sword. Then she walks into the core. 

_...Tifa..._

The memory blinks away. He’s back in Sector Five, clutching the rail tight. The figures are gone, and there’s a black box strapped to the base of the core tower. He’s too late. He struggles down the ladders to the platform and hobbles to the bomb. It’s poorly constructed and easy to disarm. But he needs to catch those criminals. And from here there is only one other way they could’ve gone. 

Scaffolding leads from the Mako pool into a utility shaft. He crawls through and finds the security doors in the maintenance rooms beyond unlocked. He’s close. 

He brushes off the resurgence of that particular memory. Blood loss had simply made him woozy, and he needs to finish this mission. Tifa is dead. Even if it felt like just months ago to him, it’s been five years.

The utility catwalks open onto the exterior of the Reactor, splitting into two directions, and it's here where he catches up to them. Wind whips around him, and the city sprawls outward far below. The pair are at the fork, torn over which way to go. Cloud positions his sword in front of him, trying hard not to flinch from the shrapnel burying deeper with each step. He can feel sweat all over his face. 

“S-Stop…” he calls out. 

The leader turns, raises his gun-arm right at Cloud. But Cloud’s mind is suddenly plummeting into surreality as the woman faces him. She recognizes him. 

“Cloud?” she asks, her mouth a perfect oval as she speaks his name. 

“ _‘Cloud’_?” The leader looks at her in disbelief. “You know this asshole?” 

Cloud’s eyes are locked on hers. She’s older than he remembers, but it’s her without a doubt. Plucked straight from his memories. Tifa. She’s alive somehow. His chest hurts, and he realizes he’s been holding his breath.

“I-I did,” she says. “I mean, I do.” 

She gives Cloud a smile, and his heart skips a beat. She can’t be real. But it can’t be a dream. 

“You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me!” the leader raves. “Tifa, this is the guy I told you ‘bout from Sector One.” 

“Stand down, Barret,” Tifa says. 

“We outta time. Fuck this guy, let’s go!” 

But Tifa is coming towards Cloud, careful like she is approaching a frightened animal. 

Cloud stares at her. He barely hears his own voice speak. 

“Your bomb… I disabled it. You...you failed…” 

“Cloud, it’s really you!” she says, and he can see happiness in her eyes. Honest happiness.

The sword lowers, but he won’t let go. He’s fraught with an overload of emotions. 

“Tifa… You… You’re alive…” He can’t believe it. He tries to smile back at her. 

She stands tall, demeanor shifting. 

“So _you’re_ the First-Class Shinra SOLDIER tracking us,” she surmises. 

A childish pride fills him. He doesn’t correct her. 

“Y-yeah, that’s right. First-class,” he says. 

“You need to let us pass.” 

Her voice is stern, commanding. Somewhere Heidegger is buzzing in his ear, but he hasn’t been paying it any attention. Fragments come through. 

“....asset...compromised…” Heidegger sounds muffled, like he’s speaking to someone else with the comm open. 

“Cloud, let us pass,” Tifa insists. “I can see you’re hurt. We don’t want to fight.”

“We ain’t got time for this damn reunion,” Barret bellows. “He’s a distraction! Shinra troops will be here any second.”

As if on cue, a siren shrieks. Cloud knows this sound, and he instantly raises his sword like a trained dog. A techno-soldier has been released. A mechanical monstrosity, one of many built in this very Reactor. It appears from below, jets blowing torrents of wind around them. 

“Get behind me!” Cloud yells to her, knowing full well what this thing is. But she doesn’t move, watching as it ascends.

It’s a prototype air model, a fully automated weapon designed for in-flight combat against heavy armor.

The sleek green metallic body hovers at the edge of the scaffolding then descends between Cloud and Tifa. It’s at least two stories tall. Cloud looks back the way he came, but the door has been sealed. A red light blinks over the keypad. He suspects the other two doors are the same since Tifa and Barret aren’t running.

“I’ll handle this,” Cloud tells them. There is no way he’s letting anything hurt Tifa now that she’s come back from the dead.

“Like hell!” Tifa replies, pulling leather gloves over her fists. “Not without me.” 

“Are you crazy?” Barret screams, though his aim shifts to the new threat. “That SOLDIER is the enemy, too!”

“Shut up,” Cloud says. Then he remembers the comm. “Heidegger, what are you doing? I’m up here, and I’ve got the situation under control.” 

No response. Cloud growls in frustration. He can’t see Tifa and Barret anymore with the Airbuster Unit in the way.

“I’m watchin’ you, SOLDIER boy,” Barret warns Cloud. 

Then it attacks. The engines whir, missiles rain down. Cloud dodges then slashes, denting the armored plating. Electricity discharges in response, jolting pain through him. He’d forgotten about that automated defense. The shock paralyzes him for a second. Then he slices again in the same spot, exposing a sliver of underlying circuitry, and retreats before countermeasures can deploy. 

Lightning cracks and a bolt of yellow light splits into the machine. Barret had used a materia. The spell lights up the circuitry beneath the damaged plating, frazzling a wire. 

“That’s it,” Cloud encourages. “Keep hitting it with Lightning.” 

“I know what I’m doin’!” Barret shouts with annoyance. 

The Unit spins between the multiple targets, shooting missiles and arcs of electricity. Tifa gets in too close, pummeling the joints connecting one arm to its chassis, and a flamethrower sprays at her. She leaps back. Cloud casts Ice, freezing the nozzle of fuel. Steam hisses. Stun grenades spew to the ground. The trio continue the assault, striking and withdrawing in measured unison to keep the Unit bouncing between them. 

The wounds in Cloud’s side and shoulder are only getting worse with each hit he takes. He remembers the healing materia and draws the spell out of its depths, but it’s such a young materia that he can’t coax out anything more than a light refresh. He exhausts its strength without lending much more to his own.

But the Airbuster is taking heavy damage from Barret’s constant stream of gunfire and Tifa’s lightning-fast martial arts. The Unit evaluates the battlefield and lifts off, putting distance between it and the melee attackers. Cloud runs to Tifa and Barret. The three stand together, and the Unit’s arms fly off, sailing towards them under independent propulsion.

“Stay on the main body!” Cloud tells Barret, knowing his gatling gun is the only reliable way to damage it now. 

“I know, I know!” Barret roars. “Quit talkin’ to me!” 

Cloud stands back-to-back with Tifa, defending against the brutal swipes from the autonomous arms. He can hear her breathing, nearly feel her body heat. It’s sending all sorts of reactions through him. He forces himself to focus, cutting apart one of the arms, leaving it a sputtering pile of dark metal, and then he turns to help Tifa. But she’s already taken care of hers, landing a frightful kick that sends components flying. It drops off the edge of the scaffolding, scraping along the exterior of the Reactor as it goes. 

Barret has filled the main chassis with bullet holes. It’s leaking fluids everywhere and malfunctioning. Black smoke snakes out. The Unit is losing altitude. Something pops inside it and a fire erupts. The engines die. It collapses, inactive, and drops like a rock. 

Cloud leans over the edge to confirm its demise. The prototype explodes into a fireball, sending a chain reaction of smaller collapses along sections of the Reactor below.

“No, Barret!” 

Tifa stands between Cloud and Barret, who was just about to shove Cloud over the ledge, too. 

“He just helped us. That means he’s on our side,” she says and turns to him. “Right, Cloud?”

Threat eliminated, Cloud breathes out. The agony crawling up his side is overwhelming. He feels sick.

“Are you alright?” Tifa is asking, touching his shoulder, but she seems so far away. 

The doors remain sealed, he can see that from here. He’s not sure he can activate the overrides in his condition. He can barely stand. Heidegger pipes up in his head. 

“Yes, keep them talking a minute longer,” Heidegger orders. 

Cloud throws the earpiece off the edge. 

“I’m fine,” he tells Tifa. “You’re...not dead. How did you—?”

“We do this later,” Barret interjects. “C’mon, Tifa, we gotta find a way outta here. Help me with these doors. Leave SOLDIER-boy to think about what he did.” 

“He has a name,” she responds, following. 

“Not to me he don’t.” 

Cloud wants to tell him that his friend, the woman rescued from Sector One, is alive, but a distinct sound in the sky is drawing nearer. A helicopter is approaching. Several, actually. 

Black military choppers appear, floodlights hot on Tifa and Barret. The door of one slides open, and a shock of red hair in a suit points a long rifle out. 

“No!” Cloud shouts, but the shots are fired. 

Barret and Tifa drop. MPs descend from two other helicopters, swarming past Cloud. He is frozen, bleeding out and clinging to the railing. A rope twists from the first helicopter and the Turk who’d handled the rifle slides down, hopping next to Cloud on the catwalk and dusting off his disheveled suit. He chews on a toothpick.

“If you want something done right,” Reno says with a sigh, “gotta call in the experts.” 

He flicks his toothpick right at Cloud’s chest. Then he notices Cloud staring over at the MPs removing Tifa and Barret. 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Reno confides. “Your new little pals aren’t dead. Just asleep. And you,” he pushes one finger into Cloud’s shoulder, “are in big, big trouble.” 

He grins devilishly, then motions towards the rope. 

“Well? Your ride home awaits.” 

Cloud can’t climb though. He doesn’t move. Reno calls the chopper closer and hauls Cloud aboard. 

As the aircraft ascends, Cloud lays dizzy on its floor. Reno and Rude are there, but his thoughts are all with Tifa. He can’t believe she would be a terrorist. It doesn’t seem like her, but then again he doesn’t really know her at all. He never did, if he’s being honest. 

At the Shinra Tower, he limps into Heidegger’s office and listens to the man chastise him nonstop for twenty minutes. Cloud jeopardized the mission. He didn’t fulfill his duty. They had to call in the goddamn Turks from field duty to clean up this mess. And that just gives the Administrative department more ammunition against dismantling the remnants of the SOLDIER program. 

“You’re decommissioned,” Heidegger snarls. “Unreliable. Broken. Get out of my sight.”

Cloud tastes blood in his mouth. He wheezes. “Where should I go?” 

“I don’t care.” Then Heidegger adds dismissively, “Hojo wanted you for something. Why don’t you go see him?”

Cloud obeys, dejected but oddly not caring as much as the situation should warrant. 

He takes the elevator to the basement, one arm wrapped around his abdomen. It’s getting difficult to keep his eyes open. The doors ping open at the bottom and he stumbles down the familiar corridor, one hand on the wall. He knocks on the glass doors of the professor’s laboratory. An assistant answers, looking very frightened of Cloud’s appearance. 

“...the professor...wanted to see…” 

He collapses before he can finish the thought.


	5. The Promise

He wakes up two days later on a metal slab in a place he’s never seen before. It’s a laboratory, but it's dark and filled with equipment that shines in half-shadow with violent potential. As his consciousness emerges, he feels a touch on the back of his neck. A hand, but it's not violent or eager. The touch is loving, gentle. Motherly. When it lets him go, he feels cold and numb everywhere except his left arm, which is held immobile and plugged with needles from a large boxy device. Blackish liquid is being fed into him, burning as it crawls under his skin. He feels nauseous. 

“...eighth transfusion trial,” Professor Hojo is speaking nearby into a handheld recorder, facing away from Cloud. “The first since the original transfusion. Newly harvested cells are stable. No sign of degradation from the donor. Subject has accepted the additional material.” 

The recorder clicks off. The professor chuckles to himself.

Cloud stirs. He can’t bear the heat itching up his arm anymore. 

“Ah, awake are we?” Hojo snaps in mild annoyance and walks to the machine, examining levels of the fluid within.

“What is that?” Cloud asks groggily.

Hojo tinkers with the machine then shuts it down. Cloud’s blood backs into the tubing, and the professor allows a vial or two to fill before disconnecting the needles. Cloud relaxes as the numbness recedes, but a hot line of pain sprouts along his ribs and shoulders, vying for attention. There’s a webwork of scarring around his torso and shoulder. The damage from the shrapnel had been healed while he was out. 

“You report to me until further notice,” Hojo says. “The Turks delivered a specimen that I’ve been looking forward to studying for quite some time. It’s in the holding cells of the inner lab.”

Cloud sits up, rubbing the bruised area of his arm where the machine had been attached. 

“What?” he replies to Hojo. His thoughts had been on Tifa. 

“You destroyed Heidegger’s prototype,” Hojo explains. “True, you did so with two fistfuls of shrapnel shredding apart your insides, but Heidegger is a simple man with no ability to recognize scientific greatness even when it’s smacking him in the face.”

Cloud does not know what to say to this. 

“So,” Hojo continues with a huff. “Until Heidegger realizes the brilliance of my achievement here, you are confined to the tower. Off field duty.”

“Oh.” Cloud was expecting much worse. A dishonorable discharge at best. Being thrown in the brig with the terrorists and executed at worst. 

“The inner lab.” Hojo hands Cloud a white keycard. “The new specimen requires monitoring. It is very precious to me, and I want you to ensure its safety.”

It’s such a mundane request, he can’t believe this is his punishment. 

“For how long?” Cloud asks, taking the keycard.

“For as long as I say. Starting now.” 

Cloud stands, and a dizzy spell holds him. There’s a faint whispering like a thousand voices tumbling around in his head. Then it's gone. 

“S-sure,” he replies. Showing weakness is exactly not how he wants to start his reputation recovery. Heidegger already hates him. He doesn’t want Hojo doubting him, too. 

But he has to see Tifa. He needs to know how she survived, talk to her about the fire, the Reactor. Maybe she can corroborate the events. 

Cloud exits the lab. He’s in an area of the underground science division that he’s not familiar with, and it takes him a few turns to find the brightly lit main laboratories. Hojo’s assistants are busy within the glass-walled chambers, wrapped in protective gear and handling tubes with thick gloves. The pungent scent of sterilizing chemicals coats the back of his throat.

He heads straight up to the holding cells in the public safety division, which are restricted by high-level security clearance. Cloud punches in his codes, but they’ve been revoked. Of course. Heidegger wouldn’t want him anywhere near the prisoners. 

Then he tries his new science division keycard, and the door clicks open. The oversight, no doubt, of two bureaucratically warring departments.

There are no human guards here. Everything is automated and robotic. Within the entry is a grim hallway of mounted turrets. The guns recognize him as a Shinra employee and remain inactive. Further down is a sealed door and beyond are the holding cells. Cameras record from stationary positions in corners, and he shuts those off from a security terminal. Records show that the terrorists are scheduled for public termination pending interrogation and marketing logistics sign-off. 

He takes a deep breath. What will he even say to her? 

The feeds go dark, and he enters the holding area. 

The cells are secured with thick mythril bars, separated into singular units along one wall. The first cell is occupied by the woman from Reactor One. She sees him but says nothing. The next two cells hold the men he’d subdued in Reactor Five. One holds his head in his hands. The other’s face is black-and-blue. They glare at him.

Then he passes by the leader, Barret. 

“Whatchu doin’ back here, SOLDIER boy?” Barret growls. “Ain’t you caused us enough trouble already?”

Cloud does not acknowledge him and proceeds to the final cell. 

Tifa sits quietly on the hard metal cot, hands folded in her lap. She looks like she’s cold. Recessed lighting throws her features in shadow. His presence startles her at first. She stands and retreats from the bars, then relaxes once she realizes it’s him. 

“Oh. Cloud…” She breathes out his name. “I thought…” 

“Tifa.” That’s as far as he can get because he’s spellbound by the multitude of questions in his brain. 

Barret leans against the bars of his cell with arms dangling out. Cloud notices the gun-arm has been dismantled, just stubby harmless metal now. He’s watching Cloud. 

“You’re okay,” Tifa says with a smile. “I saw all that blood before. You were drenched.” 

“I’m sorry,” Cloud blurts out. “I would never have let Shinra bring you in.”

A strong sense of kinship pulls him to her from their shared origin. Everyone else in their town is dead, the past erased. He wants to protect her, the only thread leading through the uncertainty of his memories. 

“I never thought I’d see you again,” he confesses. 

“Seven years is a long time,” she agrees. 

Static interrupts his thoughts for a second. Hadn’t it only been five? 

“And you’re working for Shinra now, just like you wanted,” she continues. 

He pushes away the misfire.

“And what are you doing working with terrorists?” he whispers, moving closer to the bars. He wishes he could talk to her without Barret overhearing. “I can’t believe you were trying to blow up a Mako Reactor!” 

She crosses her arms in defiance. 

“Shinra are the terrorists, not us,” she says. “Mako energy is the problem, and all we were trying to do is disable the Reactor, not harm anyone!” 

It isn’t the time to argue principles. He wants to ask her about Nibelheim, but he can sense the others listening in. He’ll have time to ask her later, he hopes. 

“How can you even work for a company like Shinra?” she asks. “Especially with everything they’ve done in recent years.” 

The void of time between their experiences is glaring and obvious. He has no idea what Shinra’s been doing since the General was killed. But none of that matters.

“Look,” he says, “I can get you out of here. My keycard still works, but I’m not sure for how much longer. Tonight I’ll come back and sneak you out of the building.” 

“What are they planning to do with us?”

His chest constricts. “Public execution,” he whispers. “All of you.” 

The gravity of the situation staggers her. She clasps the bars with one hand. He wants to touch her, to comfort her. 

“My gods…” Her voice is small and lost in thought. “Is there nothing Shinra wouldn’t sink to…?” Then her gaze snaps to Cloud. “You can get us out of here. You can help us.” 

But rescuing everyone isn’t what he had in mind. He is here to help her, not the others. One missing detainee could be explained, even written-off, if the execs were satisfied with all others being put to death.

He shakes his head. “No, just you. Too risky with the others.” 

Her attitude abruptly shifts. “Then the answer is no.” 

“No?” 

“That’s right. You need to help all of us if you’re going to help me.” 

He runs a hand through his hair, letting out a breath, assessing how the hell he could make that work. 

“No. No, I can’t. Just you.”

“Do you really plan to stay here, with Shinra? After what they did to you at the Five Reactor?” 

She makes it sound like the answer is clear. But this is his whole life here. He’d been saved from a deathless coma thanks to Shinra tech. If he abandoned it now, wouldn’t that be a betrayal? 

“They almost killed you up there with that… that metal contraption!” she says. 

“I chose to fight it, to help you.” But he feels foolish defending Shinra when he knows she is right. 

“So choose to help us. Please!” 

He considers it. He wants more than anything for her to survive. Yet he can’t logistically conceive how he would break the whole group out of their cells. Even if he decides to mutiny, he wouldn’t get very far with a troupe following him. It could very well lead to all of their deaths. 

“No promises,” he says. “I’ll be back tonight. I have to go.” 

The disabled cameras will switch to redundant power soon, and he can’t be seen in here. 

“Wait,” she calls as he turns away. 

He pauses.

“Do you remember our promise?”

He didn't, until she spoke those words. Then a brilliant memory comes to life. Everything before the Nibel Reactor is shrouded and unclear, a side effect of Mako poisoning he was told. He recalls some hazy time at the academy, his rank as an MP. He has dim bits of his childhood, of Tifa and his mother, but otherwise the rest is a large blank canvas. The day of the fire is the only solid piece, burned into him, though fragmented. The scattered pieces are there, just not in any good order. Glimpses and emotions.

Only now that she mentions this promise, it comes to him clear through the fog.

He’s atop the central water tower, the well, in Nibelheim, the night before he left town to join the Shinra military academy. He’d asked Tifa to meet him there. They were never close as kids, but he harbored secretive feelings for her and he wanted to say goodbye. One last moment with her. He wanted her to know that he was going to make something of his life. He wouldn’t always be a meaningless blip on her radar. 

He didn’t think she would show. He remembers waiting beneath the stars, swinging his legs over the ledge of the platform surrounding the water tower. There was a warm breeze that night. He feels it now over his skin. A tingle. 

She did show up. He could hardly contain his heartbeat. 

“Of course I do,” he responds, but he doesn’t make eye contact. He doesn’t want her to see that he’s still that silly boy wishing for her approval. He can’t believe he’s forgotten about this memory until now. It feels so important and permanent.

“If I’m ever in a bind, you’ll come save me,” she says. “That’s what we promised.” 

He can feel the other terrorists in their cells listening close. He knows she’s manipulating him, but he doesn’t mind. He likes that she’s remembered that moment. It means he made a lasting impression. His cheeks flush. 

“And now you’re that SOLDIER you wanted to be, and now you’re in a position to rescue me.”

“Yes…” He feels her winning. It’s almost cruel the way she’s tangled his emotions, forcing him into her will. 

“If you want to keep that promise, then you’ll need to save my friends, too.”

He gives her one final look, saying more than he intends without words, and then he leaves. The cameras will be on soon. As he walks past Barret, he hears a chuckle and brushes it off.

It’s not until he’s past the security turrets that he lets out a long lonesome sigh. He flips on the camera feeds so they don’t ping auxiliary power, and then he heads out the main doors. 

Just as he’s leaving Rude walks in, sunglasses folded in his suit jacket pocket. He scowls at Cloud. Turks don’t normally care about prisoners. As far as Cloud knew, they were field operatives specializing in espionage and kidnapping. He rarely saw any of them in the Tower aside from training. 

Rude shoves past Cloud, jutting into his shoulder hard. “Traitor.” 

Cloud bristles. “What did you call me?” 

Rude doesn’t reply. His expression is flat and impossible to decode. He vanishes into the holding cells beyond, leaving Cloud to wonder what exactly the Turk was sent here to do. 

But he can’t linger. Tonight he’ll return and shut off all the security, including the gun turrets, and get Tifa to safety, dealing with whatever consequences may come. And if she won’t leave without her friends, well, he might just force her. The two of them could sneak through the utility corridors to one of the maintenance shafts and be outside within an hour. 

For now, though, it’s best he reports to the inner labs. The less time he’s away from his post, the better. The assignment from Hojo sounds banal, but maybe it will take his mind off that promise for a while longer. Enough to get him through this day.


	6. The Bodyguard

The inner lab is reserved for those closest to Hojo’s research and rumored to be full of Shinra’s top secret biological weaponry. Cloud has seen the output, fought against manufactured Mako-drenched wolves and crossbred animals of unclear origin, but he’s never actually been inside these labs until now. 

The elevator down makes his ears pop, and the white corridors beyond are brightly lit and incredibly clean. There is nobody else down here. He walks past rows of sealed numbered doors and unusual equipment housed within glass laboratories. The whole place is unsettling and quiet. And freezing. He can see his breath. A low hum vibrates in the flooring, irritating his bones. 

Cloud was never given a number, so he ignores the numbered doors, looking instead for signs for specimen staging or intake. 

As he searches, he thinks of Tifa. He’s already plotting her escape, going through the route in his head, rehearsing manual deactivations for the gun turrets in the event his keycard stops working. He can’t stomach losing the only other person who could confirm what happened inside that Reactor five years ago. Once he gets her alone, he will need to ask.

And maybe he’ll leave the Tower with her. Shinra is the enemy, she’d said. Maybe he needs to investigate that belief. He fantasizes about staying with her somewhere in Midgar, catching up on all the time he’s lost. Going AWOL is punishable by death for SOLDIERs, but then again he wasn’t really a SOLDIER. Would Shinra even care if he was gone? They certainly were trying hard enough to kill him if the last two Reactors were any indication. 

A sound brings his mind back. A clicking. He senses someone nearby. Watching him.

“Hello?” 

He looks down the empty hall. Nothing except that awful hum in the walls. 

Then he hears it again. Click, click, click. Coming closer like fingernails tapping on the walls. He stands motionless, trying unsuccessfully to pinpoint its origin. It patters through the ceiling, increasing its rhythm as it draws nearer. It’s pitch escalates. The hum in the walls seems to respond, pulsing along, a sync to his heartbeat. 

It rushes towards him with a loud snap directly overhead, terminating with a punch to his gut as if something had physically hit him. Hard. It knocks his breath out. He staggers, one hand on the wall. Then the sound is gone. The lights flicker. There is no sign of any culprit. 

His gasps puncture the newfound silence. 

Then the door to his right creaks open. Just a sliver. It’s a massive metal door, windowless and thick. The keypad next to it blinks green. 

“Professor…?” he asks though he knows there’s nobody else around. Nobody tangible, that is.

A stream of mist slithers from the narrow gap in the door, surrounding Cloud’s boots.

He doesn’t know why, but he’s compelled to look in. The logical thing would be to close the door and report its mechanical error to the professor. But something else is overriding all logic in his brain right now. He reaches for the door, hauls it open, and peers within. 

There is darkness, pure and black, swallowing any light coming in from the hall. He hears that whispering again in his head, a subtle sound akin to static. It seems to be saying his name. 

Perplexed, he steps inside the chamber, and a wall of automatic lights click on in sequence, illuminating a walkway of metal grating and solid walls. The final flood light punches on, and the centerpiece of the chamber is exposed. A grotesque malformed body is suspended within an enormous glass tube. It’s limbs are a twisted imitation of human female form. Lumps of mottled flesh sprout from its back like stunted wings, and long tendrils drift in the liquid encapsulation. A sturdy tube is plugged into its abdomen, leading to valves on the outside of the chamber. 

Instinctual fear grips Cloud. It looks like the creature has been dissected, intestines and organs connected but floating outside the torso. And above the area that could be described as breast and shoulders is the stump of a truncated neck. 

The thing is headless. 

Sudden revelation drains the intrigue right out of him. The whispering roars to life, and a hand claws into the back of his neck, wrapping upwards, pulling him. The tendrils flicker in response. It has no eyes yet he knows it’s looking at him. Abject horror seizes from somewhere deep, and he spins, running out as fast as he can. 

He slams the door shut, as if that could block out whatever horrible entity was no doubt searching for him. His heart beats so fast he’s shaking. But the voices have stopped. The hand touching him is gone. He’s covered in sweat, now chilly in the freezing cold air of the hall. 

“What the hell…” He exhales, slowing his heart rate, and steps away from the door. 

He surveys it. The tiny light on the door lock is a steady red. He pushes it to make sure the seal is secure, and it doesn’t even budge. Good. 

He already knows what it is even as he pretends not to. Because that thing should be dead. He saw Sephiroth behead it himself. The General carried it out into the main Mako chamber of the Nibel Reactor and fell to his death clutching its slimy lifeless cranium. With its long silver hair trailing in wet strands. 

He looks above the door anyways. This one doesn’t have a number. Only letters, confirming his horrid suspicions. 

J.E.N.O.V.A.

He feels sick. The tubes leading from the creature’s body were inky black, and his skin suddenly itches with the thought that the hot fire being put into his veins earlier is a remnant of this dead thing. 

Only it wasn’t dead at all. No, he saw it move. He felt it reaching towards him. And a tiny part of him had reveled in it. The notice of its eyeless gaze. 

But how had it survived all these years? Shinra must’ve moved it from the Nibel Reactor right after the incident, kept it alive or maybe it was always undead. And if this is the reason he’d survived Nibelheim… 

No, there’s no proof of that, he quickly tells himself. He needs to… to focus on Tifa and his plan tonight. He needs to find specimen intake so he can fulfil his current job. Whatever he just saw would have to wait for analysis later. 

He backtracks down the corridor, heading away from the numbered doors. Although he tries to purge it from his mind, the image of the floating thing follows him, those long thin tendrils shifting in his direction. A strange fascination is coiling in his chest. 

Lost in thought, he turns a corner and collides straight into Professor Hojo. Cloud jumps back, startled, and the professor tumbles to the floor, papers scattering and spectacles askew. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” the professor scolds. “You’re supposed to be in the east wing. East! This is all storage back here.”

Cloud blinks. The sight of a real human jolts him from the spell that headless monster had him under. The professor stands and dusts off his lab coat. He adjusts his spectacles and glares.

“I...was…” Cloud begins.

“You were what?” the professor sneers. “Lost? Clueless? There’s nothing back here for you. These are all hermetically sealed doors, only accessible by _my_ keycard. Not yours. Now go. East wing. Third cell. That way.” 

Hojo shuffles off. 

Cloud realizes what he’s been told. That door couldn’t have opened on its own. It couldn’t have accidentally detected Cloud’s keycard and swung open. Had any of what he experienced actually been real? 

He’s consumed with this uncertainty as he finds the east wing. It’s right across from the elevator in the stark white foyer, with obvious signs indicating specimen intake and holding. Somehow he’d completely missed it the first time. 

Still in a daze, he heads through the double doors leading into a narrow beige corridor. There are numbered doors along one side, but this section is more like a casual workspace than a dedicated silo for scientific research. The harsh sterility and cleanliness of the opposite wing is gone, as is the freezing cold air. 

The doors here are solid metal, but each has a viewing window of reinforced glass. He glances into the first two cells as he passes. There’s a lion-like creature asleep in a cage in one. Its red glossy fur glistens in the glow from a live flame at the end of its tail. He’s never seen anything like it. The third cell is a concrete room separated into viewing and holding areas by a thick glass wall. Behind the glass stands a woman. She’s young and pretty, with long brown hair in a loose twist down her back. 

He slides his keycard through and enters.

Immediately, she stands and backs away. 

“Who’re you?” she asks, eyes large with fright. Her voice is muffled through the glass. 

There doesn’t seem to be anything special about her. Dirt crusts the hem of her long pink dress, and she looks tired. Track marks bruise the inside of her arm, evidence of Hojo’s examinations. 

“What do you want?” she says. “You aren’t one of them…”

He looks around the viewing area. This is his punishment for insubordination. Not even a place to sit. Cameras record from the corners. 

“You’re a SOLDIER,” she remarks. “Your eyes.”

He shuts the door and leans against it. The headless monstrosity preoccupies him even as he tries to focus on Tifa. He decides that he’ll leave with her tonight. That thing in the basement sends indecipherable shudders through him. 

“I didn’t know the SOLDIER program still existed,” the captive says. “Are you First-Class?” 

The way its tendril had moved. Like it recognized him. From all those years ago in the Reactor? How could that be? 

“My boyfriend was,” the woman continues. “First-Class. Killed in action, but they wouldn’t tell me how. I’d like to think he died doing something heroic, like maybe saving a comrade or thwarting an evil plan.” 

She’s making conversation to entice his empathy. It’s irritating. He doesn’t want to interact right now. 

“I…I’m from Sector Five. Beneath the plate.”

“Are you going to talk the entire time?” he interrupts.

She falls silent. 

“Because I don’t wanna hear about your life,” he says. “I’m not interested. For all I care, you could be the slum drunk.”

She gazes down at her hands. He realizes he upset her and reigns in his callous resentment. Between Jenova and Tifa, he’s a tangle of hot wires, and none of that is her fault. 

“What are you going to do to me?” she asks.

“Me? Nothing. I’m here to guard you. Your safety is all I’m concerned with.”

She looks up, and he notices her deep emerald eyes.

“If that were true, you would help me get out of here,” she says, invigorated with fresh defiance. “I’m not some animal to be caged and prodded.” 

Cloud shrugs. He can’t trust anything she says, and he’s worrying about enough already without adding this woman to the list. 

“That professor is a madman,” she says, getting close to the glass. “He thinks I’m descended from some ancient powerful species. The last of my kind. He’s probably going to butcher me up. He seemed giddy at the thought.” 

Cloud rolls his shoulder. The shrapnel wounds haven’t fully healed, and leaning against it made the joints ache. He doesn’t like the idea of this woman going under the professor’s scalpel, but he is in no position to do anything aside from his orders. Not this close to Tifa’s rescue.

“He raved about the General.” She’s not even attempting to hide her desperation now. “He thinks I’m linked to him somehow. To Sephiroth.” 

The name grabs Cloud’s attention. 

“What?” he finally addresses her. 

She takes his attention and runs with it. 

“Sephiroth. You know, the famous General from the War.”

“I know who he is…” 

“That creepy professor kept talking about him.” 

“What did he say?” 

She shakes her head. “I… I passed out. He was telling me how special my bloodline is. He said something about Sephiroth. He said he needed more time.” 

Cloud isn’t sure what to make of it. The headless thing in the basement floats in his mind, tendrils twitching. He looks away from her because he’s afraid she’ll notice his discomfort. 

“Please help me…” she begs in a whisper. “Get me out of here.”

“Why would he think you’re part of an ancient bloodline?” Cloud wonders aloud. 

She doesn’t reply. An exhausted sigh leaves her lips, and she sits down. She puts her head in her hands. He feels sorry for her suddenly, pulled in by forces outside of her control, put in an impossible situation against her will. 

He doesn’t press the subject. They lapse into silence for an hour. Then two. The woman leans against the glass, dismally poking at the base of her cage with one finger. If he weren’t here, would she be scrambling to figure a way out of her cell? Is his true purpose just to scare her into submission with his constant presence? He doesn’t mind being used as a threat, but here it feels wrong. 

At the top of their third hour together, she speaks again. 

“My name is Aerith.” Her voice is sad, resigned. “What’s yours?”

Don’t respond, he tells himself. She’s looking for a way to build sympathy. But it's too late for stoicism. He wants to show her he’s human. That he’s not like the others.

“Cloud. It’s Cloud.” He keeps his tone stern. He sits next to the door, arms resting on his knees. 

“You work for that professor?” she asks, scratching at the glass ineffectually with a fingernail. 

“I work for Shinra.” 

Aerith laughs. It’s a pleasant sound. “I know that, silly. So what do you do here for Shinra?” 

That is a difficult question to answer. He hasn’t had consistent responsibilities yet. His position is unique, given the circumstances. So he says nothing. He’s already shared too much. 

“Secretive, huh?” 

She seems in brighter spirits. He almost smiles.

Then the door clicks open. Cloud stands at attention, eyes averted from the specimen. Aerith goes into the far corner of her cell.

“Well, now,” the professor says, sauntering in. The pockets on his lab coat sag heavy. “Looks like you aren’t useless after all.” 

Then he turns toward Aerith, grinning. A surge of protective desire fills Cloud. He doesn’t want the professor touching her. She’d gotten into his head somehow. 

“Take her to the lab in the west wing,” Hojo instructs Cloud. He keys something into the electronic instrument panel on the side of the cage and smoke fills her chamber. 

Cloud’s chest tightens. “What is that?” he asks in alarm. 

Aerith begins coughing, choking. She falls to the ground. 

Hojo chuckles. “A pleasant slumber,” he says, watching her suffer. 

Cloud has to force himself not to act. Think of Tifa, the plan tonight. He can’t get distracted. He can’t help everyone. 

Aerith is unconscious, and the professor keys in another sequence to clear the smoke from the room. Then the glass wall lowers into the floor. Cloud steps within to check on her. Her skin is warm and soft, her pulse rapid. He lifts her up. 

“First laboratory,” Hojo specifies with a lengthy glare. “West wing. I think you know the way.” 

Hojo’s cellphone buzzes. He answers in a brusk tone, arguing with whoever is on the other line. 

Cloud carries Aerith to the exit. Her head falls against his chest, and he spots something shiny tucked in the knot of the ribbon in her hair. A materia. It’s pale in color. It lodges free as he shifts her weight and meanders down his arm. He catches it, stumbling a bit to conceal it’s discovery from Hojo. Something about this materia makes him not want to release it.

“I don’t care about the execution!” Hojo snaps over the phone. “My work is more important than public appearances.” 

The word stops Cloud in his tracks. The professor has turned away, hand thrust in his pocket, shoulders hunched. 

“Just say I’m busy. Why do I need to be on camera with you lot?” Then he straightens, clears his throat, and hangs up. He shoots Cloud a vicious look. “What are you still doing here? Secure the specimen in lab one. Like I said. I have to take care of something upstairs, but I’ll be back before she wakes up.” 

The execution. Cloud hears it echoing in his head. 

“Everything okay, professor?” he asks, nonchalant. 

Hojo sighs. “Yes, yes. I guess the Turks got whatever information they needed during interrogation because the damn timelines sped up on those stupid terrorists. Now my very important work is being interrupted for a couple of lousy cameras.” 

“Oh.” Cloud keeps his voice steady, but his heart is hammering. He squeezes the materia in his palm, holding Aerith tighter. “Are you going...far?” 

“Eh, just to the President’s suite. Marketing thinks its best to do these things on company property…” Hojo trails off, scribbling something onto a notepad from his pocket. “Yes, yes, I think it won’t upset my timeline too much…” He strolls away, absorbed in a new thought. 

Cloud’s mind is frantic. He must get up there. He must stop that execution. He is supposed to have more time with Tifa! 

The woman in his arms is his first priority, though. The professor ascends in the elevator, muttering to himself, and Cloud steps faster through the cold west labs. His keycard pops open the first door, and he secures Aerith on the metal table. For a moment, he doesn’t want to leave her. He puts the materia in his pocket, figuring it would be safer with him, then he locks the door behind him, leaving her alone in the operating chamber. 

He doesn’t know how he will save Tifa. He doesn’t even have his sword. Weapons access was rescinded when he lost Public Safety credentials. He has no plan, but pure adrenaline and the thought of losing a part of his past forever fuels his resolve. He will make it to her. He will keep his promise.


End file.
